This week, our first online week, has been an interesting one to say the least. The film we watched, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, is insane. I am going to focus heavily on the film because there is so much to unpack with it. The only thing we no for sure is that we know nothing. The surreal setting and shooting of this film creates an alluring hallucination that captivates the audience in confusion and intrigue. Although we have no idea what is going on as we follow Valerie in her rite of passage from maidenhood to womanhood. The acid trip of a dream we have to witness to get her to womanhood is very hard to sum up in just a few words. It is such an amazing artistic film, but if you aren’t focused the whole time you have no idea how you got to where you are. (Sometimes even if you are paying attention you have to rewind and try again.)

This thirteen-year-old girl lives an interesting yet messed up life. So much of her life revolves around familial relationships, that are warped and improper. Society would frown upon how supposed siblings and parents act. The fine line between how taboo the relationships are and aren’t is the fact we have no idea if anyone is actually related or who they say they are. This strange trail of events is hard to comprehend, but in the article “HORROR Transgression, transformation and titillation Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie a týden divů” by Tanya Krzywinska, the desire and sexual attraction between apparent family members.

“In accordance with Freud’s central notion that fantasy is subject to the distortions of the primary process, the Oedipal connection becomes diffuse here, subject to disavowal. It is never clear that Valerie’s brother is indeed her brother, for example, or that the vampire-priest-constable is her father. They are both objects of Valerie’s desire (as she is the object of their desire), yet to keep such a pretty game in play, these potential sexual relationships are invoked only to be deferred. That all the central characters in Valerie’s world do not have definitive, stable identities locates that world as subjective artifice. Valerie imagines a range of scenarios in which her family members are endowed with magical powers,their status inflated to fairytale proportions, all along the lines of Freud’s family romance.”

Valerie has to experience and understand what her body is doing, how it is changing. The unclear Oedipus complex happening in this film is hard to shame. Because everything goes back and forth on if anyone is actually related it is hard to completely classify as taboo. At most we can call it “icky” because society’s rules are borderline being crossed, but we don’t know for sure. Not knowing for sure is how this film skates by, which was done deliberately, not only in this film, but in the novel it was based from.

The surreal imagery of this film is beautiful. The harsh shifts between scenes, the nature, the over focus on white, flowers, and fruit is at the forefront of the film. Most of the imagery pertains to purity and Adam and Eve. These over-focused images and hidden messages only add to the illusion that we know what’s going on in this film.

“Valerie jolts along with the logic of a hallucination, its more conventional vampire plot intercut with odd visions and heightened by a soundtrack of choral chants and disembodied dialogue. Sometimes these dislocations bring us intimately close to Valerie herself, from various appealing angles, and on a second or third viewing you see how these shots often punctuate moments of conflict, as if Valerie’s inner equanimity were guiding the course of events.” (Prikryl)

This weird twist on Adam and Eve with a dash of vampires is a truly questionable. This mythical world that Valerie lives in is hard to follow. The biggest problem is we don’t know if its reality, or a dream. The film is centered around Valerie in her bed sleeping, or her returning to it, an underlying idea that its all a fantasy in her head that her body has rampaged because of the adolescent hormones blooming inside her.

Coming of age stories are a huge hit, especially among the younger generations. This taboo version of one addresses many of the darker themes and desires that weren’t allowed to be addressed. However, in the late 1960s, the code that restricted what was taboo and could come on the screen was finally squashed out. Anything and everything was allowed, it was an open and taboo free future. Moral standards could be lowered and had no real guidelines, so when people filled the theater to watch near incest it was allowed, perhaps not Kosher, but it was no longer against cinematic codes. The film itself was a must see. Although the language barrier may be an issue the subtitles help a lot. The confusing ride is worth it in every way. This film requires more than one screening, as there is so much to unpack, notice, and experience.